82: Americans

Americans In The Holocaust

Some people - especially Americans - may wonder why they should care about the Holocaust since it seems that only Other Nationalities (Germans, Poles, etc.) were Victims.

In reality American Citizens (Jewish, Catholics and Protestants) were Holocaust Victims and Survivors. I am talking about people who were American Citizens before and during World War 2 – not those that became Americans after the War.

Some of the American Citizens During the Holocaust:

Mildred Harnack: 1902–1943 

 Literary Historian, Translator, Resistance Fighter - Beheaded at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin, Germany.

Eddy Hamel: 1902–1943  

Soccer Player for AFC Ajax in the Netherlands – Gassed at the Auschwitz Death Camp in German-Occupied Poland.

James Watkins 

20, of Oakland, California, was found at the Prison Hospital in Fuchsmuehl, Germany, by the U.S. Third Army after surviving the Death March from the Berga Concentration Camp in Germany in 1945 (one of 343 Americans kept there instead of a POW Camp as required by the Geneva Convention.)

Mary Berg (born Miriam Wattenberg; 1924- 2013  

Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto in German-Occupied Poland - Author of a Holocaust Diary (the first Diary about the Holocaust in the US in English in 1944.)

Anthony Acevedo: 1924-2018 

A Roman Catholic Army Medic from California sent to the Berga Concentration Camp in Germany in 1945 (one of the 343 Americans kept there instead of a POW Camp as required by the Geneva Convention because the Germans said he “looked Jewish”.)

Chasten Bowen: 1924-2016 

He was a Bomber Pilot shot down over German-Occupied France and sent to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp (along with 168 other Americans – instead of a POW Camp as required by the Geneva Convention.)

There were many more Americans and other Nationalities that you don't usually associate with being a Holocaust Victim/Survivor: Brits, Irish, Canadians, Spaniards, Swiss, Brazilians, etc. Some were Jewish, but many were not.